In which our heroine, having defeated the three-headed demon of supercomputing, optimization, and ill-posed problems in her quest for the elusive Ph.D., embarks upon her new career.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Sew Much Fun

I really enjoy sewing, but I don't get much of a chance to do it. I took a couple of years of sewing classes in 4-H, so I have some basic sewing skills but nothing very advanced. I prefer making things rather than making clothes, because if my curtains are a little uneven, for example, it doesn't look half as bad as if my clothes are a little uneven.

I took the initiative when I bought Melvin, the tiniest, babiest computer, to order some fabric with which to sew a case for him. I wanted something pre-quilted, and this sunflower fabric immediately caught my eye:

So I made up my own pattern and cut it from the fabric:I soon realized, however, that the double-pull zipper I had bought was of the wrong orientation. You see, it was a jacket zipper, so when the zipper pulls are apart, the zipper should be zipped together on a jacket.But I needed the opposite for my laptop case -- the zipper pulls should open the zipper when they are far apart. So, I performed a little zipper surgery, cutting off the safety teeth at the ends of the zipper and rethreading the top zipper pull to the bottom of the zipper:Then, I sewed the zipper to the fabric pieces I was going to use for the top and narrow sides of the case:I also made some carrying handles for the case, and put them on the wider sides of the case. I should also mention that I decided to make this case appear to have no visible seams. I did what's called a French seam -- first you sew wrong sides together, as appears in the picture below.Then you pin the wrong sides together such that they hide the raw edges, and sew the raw edges within the seam, as I did in this picture (you're looking at the inside of the case in this picture).Here's the finished product -- first of all, the inside of it, with two pockets (one for the laptop, and one for the power supply and other accessories):And here's the outside of the caseAnd here it is holding the laptop:This project was a lot of fun and I hope that I will be able to find more time in the future to make fun projects like this again!

Disclaimer

The events described in this blog are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are my own, and do not reflect those of my (fictitious?) employer.